


this done, day comes up new

by nnozomi



Category: Star Trek: Rihannsu - Diane Duane
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/pseuds/nnozomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ael t'Rllaillieu and some of the women she has loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this done, day comes up new

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/gifts).



Part 1

_“Hwiij th’ann-a—haei’n neth ‘Mak’khoi,’ neth ‘D’okht’r,’ neth ‘Bohw’nns’ nah’lai?”_

 

[then]

“A little more space than your last place,” Dr. McCoy allowed, his drawl so pronounced that Ael could hear it through the translator. Arrhae, who had guided him to the Empress’ quarters, was grinning openly.

“I did not accept the first set of rooms they wished to give me,” Ael said drily. “I do not think I would sleep well in a room large enough for a starship to transport into. This was the compromise we arrived at.”

“Nice. Won’t hurt you any to have a little room to move.”

“I am remiss, Doctor. Have a seat.”

He joined her at the small table, with its soft-stuffed chairs and the pitcher of ale ready and waiting. Arrhae bowed, moved toward the door. “Stay,” Ael asked her, but she shook her head.

“No, madam; we have plans to see the Doctor later, and I am much occupied. You may find me in the outer office if you need me.”

“Go and do your paperwork, girl,” McCoy added. “I’ll see you later on.”

Arrhae rolled her eyes at him, bowed once again to Ael—the movement natural, artless, even thoughtless, and when had that come to them?—and closed the door quietly behind herself.

“You will talk with her later?” Ael asked, pouring for both of them.

“Lots of logistics to get through for this plan for next summer, assuming your Senate actually decides to make it so. And I’m having dinner―lastmeal―with her and Ffairl tomorrow,” McCoy said. “With most of last season’s baseball news, in detail, for Ffairl―and something else for Arrhae. Want a sneak peek?” He opened one of the compartments of his small black bag and took out something which shone.

Ael made sure her hands were free of any residue of the ale, and took it: a scarf, she realized, made of the finest, softest fabric she had ever touched, more delicate even than  _tivish_ , a near-luminescent shimmering gold. After a moment of delight, she remembered accounts of the abortive diplomacy aboard _Mascrar_ and quirked her mouth. “Should I have this scanned for data chips, Doctor?”

McCoy grinned at her. “You can if you want to, but there’s no need. It’s just pretty, that’s all. Spider silk, from Earth…” He took it from her, gently, and eased it back into his bag. “Looks like she and Ffairl have you well in hand.”

“They combine between them the experiences of _hru’hfe_ , steward, leader of rebels, Senator, and…somewhat more. I could not ask for better.”

“Proud to hear it,” McCoy said, the drawl coming out stronger again, and sipped at his ale. “Phew. Out of practice with the blue stuff. How are the rest of your kids from _Bloodwing_ doing?”

“My crew have gone their own ways―some staying on board, others here with me like my Aidoann, some helping to rebuild the Fleet or returning to their Houses to do what they may there. Eriufv t’Veresh will have command―she is young yet, but seasoned, on your Bridge as elsewhere.” Ael kept her voice steady. “And Khiy will be her second.”

“Sulu will be glad to hear it,” McCoy said. “So am I. That boy belongs behind a helm console.”

“I agree. And should their accumulated youth grow too reckless, Giellun tr’Keirianh has kept his engines and will be there to stay them.”

“Saving your majesty,” McCoy muttered, “it’s been my experience that engineers can be the reckless ones, old or young. K’s’t’lk’s into her fourth century by now, and just look at her…”

Ael smiled. “They will make a good balance, then. Eriufv is still cursing me for having teased N’alae away, though; she is part of my security detail here.” She made a face. “Wretched nuisance, following where one goes…Aidoann has convinced me I should not do without them, and I have been foolish enough to yield.”

“Considering you folks’ fondness for assassinations, my vote would be with Aidoann on this one. With Miss N’alae around, you should be safe from anything up to and including homicidal Sulamids, anyway.”

“That reminds me, Doctor,” Ael said, seriously, but with a glint in her eye. “I understand that your Lieutenant Rock is one of many siblings. Could not one of his sisters or brothers be persuaded to leave their homeworld and come here to ch’Rihan? To be guarded by one of the Elements themselves would surely leave me in no need of further security.”

“Mean it?” McCoy grinned. “I’ll talk to Naraht. Carefully, mind, I don’t want him volunteering for duty himself! On _Enterprise_ we’ve got no plans to do without him any time soon. I think he’s still among the most adventurous of his people—“ Ael nodded, remembering the fear and glory of molten lava—“but it’s about time one or two other Hortas joined the wider world, if they’re up for it. We’ll test Naraht’s powers of persuasion, eh?”

 “I rely on his and yours.” Ael helped herself to one of the delicate, crumby slices of _sstheu_ bread and nibbled carefully, concentrating on the taste of nuts and spices. “Tell me, Doctor. How much of your visit here is as a Starfleet officer, and how much as a…personal friend of ch’Rihan?”

McCoy raised both eyebrows, making her think of Spock. “Well, Starfleet’s payin’ my fare, and things haven’t settled down so much ch’Rihan is the latest tourist hot spot just yet. Might say I’m here as a Starfleet officer who was chosen for the job on account of being a friend of the family.”

“Good,” Ael said decisively. He blinked. “In that case, I need feel no qualms about asking you a favor in your professional capacity. As a medic, that is.”

“Now that I can give of without stinting,” McCoy allowed. “Don’t tell me they’re not looking after you well enough here? Figure the Empress ought to have the best of…oh.”

Ael kept her eyes on his face, noting the faintly heightened color the ale had brought: ruddy, where a Rihannsu would have been copper-green. “I find,” she said as evenly as she might, “that I am not easy with Rihannsu surgeons. Oh, you are right―I have the best of care if I should need it, and Ffairl makes it his business to ensure that none serve me who should not. He is very good at his job. I have no reason to think that the doctors under the Empress’ official patronage might wish me ill, or give me any less than their best. And yet…”

“And yet,” McCoy filled in, the tone of his voice subtly different, “you see t’Hrienteh when you see a Rihannsu with a protoplaser.”

“Or a solid-state thermometer,” Ael said drily. “You know very well that we are somewhat less advanced in the technologies of medicine than we might be, and that is something I will need to discuss with you at length while you are here―it could be said, after all, that the Federation owes us a technology or three.”

He winced. “Jim would say something about the fortunes of war. Me, being the one who does the mopping up every time…well. Medical technology, right, it’s on the table. Right now, young lady, you can quit changing the subject.”

“I see you are in professional mode, Doctor. Yes. Yes, you are right. I can’t…cannot help seeing the shadow of t’Hrienteh in her colleagues…and the worst of it is being moved as much to trust them as to fear.”

“Makes sense. She must have healed you…well, I hope not as many times as I’ve patched up Jim.”

“Someday you will have to tell me some of these stories,” Ael said gravely. “Many times. And I was never more thankful to her―or trusted her more―than when it was not me but my crewfolk she healed. Aidoann, Dhiemn, Gioufv, Hvaid, Nniol…” She sighed. “And Tafv.”

McCoy let a small silence fall between them, and when he spoke again it was to ask “She never gave you her name, did she?”

“…No. Nearly all of us on Bloodwing made free of each other’s names, as one does in family…not the fourth names, of course, but all others. But she kept to ‘t’Hrienteh’ always, or _Eridet’_ —‘Doctor’—and we did not press her.”

“Pity,” he said, obscurely. “Some people need to be pushed…and, well, there’s Spock, but he’s a law unto himself, God help us all…well.” He emerged from soliloquy with an almost visible mental jerk. “All right, then, what is it you need from the doctor on call?”

“It is not complicated, or serious, only tiresome." Ael opened her left hand to him, showing him the faint coppery roughness across the soft part of her palm. "This comes and goes, on either hand. It itches a little, hurts barely at all. What would you call it?"

"I'd say you've spent too much time sweatin' into your palms on a starship bridge," McCoy muttered. "Can't cure that one on the fly—as it were—but no, just from eyeing it up, without a proper examination, I'd say it's a stress reaction. Could be an allergy, but you'd probably have had it before. I've seen something like it in the Vulcan literature, the skin of the palms and soles gets more sensitive with age—I think it's a genetic thing, happens to some folks and not others, I'd have to look it up—and you get this kind of thing. I could take a protoplaser to it, but there's a standard-issue Vulcan ointment that's probably more practical."

“I do not think open trade between Vulcan and ch’Rihan is _practical_ as yet…”

“No, no, it’s nothing that esoteric. I’ll get M’Benga to send a list of the standard ingredients, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing you couldn’t have made up from what you’ve got around here. Probably end up blue, of course, like everything else y’all come up with…”

Ael took the hint behind his scowl and refilled his glass. “I thank you, Doctor. It is by no means a major problem, but I am happier knowing.”

“I aim to please. Maybe Ffairl could introduce me to those physicians he’s got on your staff? If we’re going to talk technology transfer, I’d like to get the view from the ground.”

 _And to be able to reassure me—insofar as anyone can—that they are to be trusted_ , Ael understood. “I will speak to him. Talking is a great part of your work, is it not?”

He looked at her narrow-eyed. “And _you’re_ one to talk, aren’t you? Who was it talked Jim into gettin’ us all into this in the first place?”

“Doctor, I only…connected where I could. Events moved of themselves.”

“And if you believe that, I’ve got a _real_ nice bridge on Earth to sell you… Well. Let me give you the lay of the land on this exchange thing from our end, before the official talking starts.”

They spoke of the half-made plans on each side. “Language training?” Ael asked. “Not chemical learning?”

“That came from Lieutenant Kerasus―you recall her? She says there’s no real shortcut, that you can learn to _speak_ a language chemically, but you don’t change―that you _become_ a new person as you learn a language the old-fashioned way.”

“A new person. Indeed…Perhaps we should all take up language study, and shed our old skins once.”

“Your people already tried that once upon a time,” he reminded her. “And you might could say it worked, for good or ill. Stick with the skin you’ve got for a while.”

“I will try,” she said.

McCoy looked at her closely, and she saw the fine wrinkles around his eyes, the gleam of his snake-and-staff insignia, the wide generous mouth, and wondered what he was seeing in her. “You holding up all right with all this stuff?” he asked after a moment, as she imagined he might have spoken to Jim.

“Always,” she said, and raised her glass to him, and smiled. “Not so much has changed from my time on _Bloodwing_ , and before. I am well tended by friends…for as long as they choose to be friends to me. I do what I must, and what I can, and sometimes what I will. Who can say more?”

 

 [now]

Translators’ Foreword to the _Collected Diaries of Dhaenn t’Hrienteh_ , Federation Standard edition

 …The Diaries aroused considerable controversy upon their original publication in Rihannsu. In the 48th year of the reign of _Llhei’hmnë_ Erian i-Haneh, they were then nearly one hundred years old and had remained a carefully guarded document since their discovery by _Hlalhif Llhei’hmnë_ Ael i-Mhiessan upon the death of the author. Kept strictly encoded during the author’s lifetime, under protocols accessible only to herself and, by Fleet programming constraints, her Commander, t’Hrienteh’s personal log represented a habit of decades and continued up through the day of her death.

It was thought by the members of the Group for Unsettlement Era Studies at the University of Ra’tleihfi that, despite their controversial content as regarding House s’Rllaillieu, the Diaries were a valuable resource for a deeper understanding of both life aboard _Bloodwing_ during the Unsettlement and the complex and painful political and personal forces moving through Rihannsu space at the time.

For Federation readers, it is thought that the early sections of the diaries should be of interest as well. With the support of the I-Khellian Foundation, the ICCWT has recently been making active efforts to see more Rihannsu literature, of the popular as well as classical forms, translated into Federation Standard, Vulcan, and other Federation languages; however, accounts of daily life in the Rihannsu Star Empire remain relatively scarce.

House s’Hrienteh, now long defunct, was prosperous at the time its last daughter Dhaenn i-Merraeih was growing up. If anything, this left her isolated as a child, since she was educated within the House rather than in a local school. (The Rihannsu title of the first volume of diaries can be translated as _The Outsider Inside_.) Her mother was the latest in a line of successful industrialists, with several textile factories and a number of government contracts. (Ironically, these connections were later instrumental in allowing Dhaenn access to some of the information permitting the temporary emplacement of Leonard McCoy on ch’Rihan. The most faithful account of this incident, now a significant part of Unsettlement-era history, is to be found in the bilingual _Memoirs_ of Arrhae t’Llhweiir; Ndaet'ri t'Saae's critically acclaimed novelization of the events,  _Starship on the Roof,_ is now awaiting translation into Federation Standard. T’Hrienteh does not appear in the latter, however. More recent Rihannsu historians have questioned her cooperation at this time with Ael i-Mhiessan and her Federation allies, and drawn the conclusion that either she was biding her time and keeping her cover safe, or that she felt a certain fellowship for Dr. McCoy; see below.)

Dhaenn’s father came from a family of Fleet officers, and served on _Helve_ and _T’garai_  as a navigations specialist during her childhood. While he was initially pleased with her choice to attend the Colleges of the Great Art rather than following her mother into business, he regretted that she chose the medical path; as a medical student at the Colleges, she writes wryly “Here I have managed to kill two _nei’rrh_ with one stone, leaving a clean sweep of disappointment. They have not known me.”

It was during this period of her life that she first met Ael i-Mhiessan t’Rllaillieu, who was then serving as a piloting instructor at the Colleges. She records “Piloting practice with _erei’Riov_ t’Rllaillieu. No patience with mechanic-stupid medical cadets: a sharp tongue that leaves one feeling scraped pleasantly clean of all impurities.” Ael i-Mhiessan’s first impressions are not known, but her eagerness to have t’Hrienteh take up the position of _Bloodwing_ ’s chief surgeon suggests that she remembered her positively.

T’Hrienteh’s _Bloodwing_ diaries, from her acceptance of the posting there up until the Levaeri Incident, have been seized on avidly by the compilers of the _Annals of the Empress_. As chief surgeon, she was in a position to interact with everyone on the ship from the _khre’Riov_ herself through the most junior antecenturions, and was as well in a position of trust with regard to her Commander. Her laconic word-portraits of her fellow crewmembers shed light on the group of unusually gifted, intense personalities who were to play such a large role—one way or another—in the Unsettlement, the Accession, and the Rebuilding.

It was in the period of Ael i-Mhiessan’s temporary assignment to _Cuirass_ , when the ship was in Tafv tr'Rllaillieu's charge, that t'Hrienteh's feelings for him became more than that of crewmate and friend. It is less certain whether tr’Rllaillieu shared her passion. That she was a valued friend there can be no doubt, judging from the conversations she sets down nearly verbatim, often taking place in one cabin or the other late in the shift over a pitcher of ale. Tafv tr’Rllaillieu’s writings have never been completely released; those that have now been made public do not refer to t’Hrienteh as the object of romantic love, but there is no way of saying at this time how much may have been omitted or elided, by Tafv himself or by Ael i-Mhiessan later on. It is conceivable, based on t’Hrienteh’s own writing, that she never admitted to being in love with him. Her diaries are ambiguous on this point—she was writing for herself alone, and had no need to pin down details for a third party. Evidence from accounts of tr’Rllaillieu’s earlier life suggests, if anything, that his bent was largely for men; Edhil tr’Gevahh writes of this aspect of Tafv tr’Rllaillieu in an essay about their time together at the Colleges of the Great Art. (Tr’Gevahh, who left the Fleet as soon as he honorably could and was a minor journalist in the rr’Kiren province of ch’Havran during the Unsettlement, is now considered one of the finest essayists of his time, not least for his fidelity to lived experience. His only translated work so far is the brilliant “Firefall Diary,” which chronicles the last week of the Unsettlement, concluding in the Accession of the _Hlalhif Llhei’hmnë_.)

In any case, one thing is clear: estranged from her family by her professional choices, barred by temperament and position from much intimacy with her colleagues, the only relationships of deep mutual closeness in Dhaenn t’Hrienteh’s adult life were with the Rllaillieus mother and son. Rihannsu culture permits, as a rule, higher average levels of lability than do most modern Terran paradigms, not to speak of that of their Vulcan cousins, perhaps as a counter-reaction thereto (Hong and Cermakova, writing in the _Journal of Xenosociopsychiatry_ , have suggested “S’task syndrome” as a catch-all phrase for this tendency, but the expression is not in use on ch’Rihan). T’Hrienteh’s diaries suggest that in this milieu, she found it unusually, even excruciatingly difficult to express strong emotion. It is possible that she chose a medical career because of the opportunities it offered for structured intimacy.

Historians of medicine will also find the diaries fertile ground. T’Hrienteh writes of her training and practice in varying levels of detail, but—like all medical students on all worlds, we are given to understand—she is frequently moved to complain at length about her coursework, her fellow students, and her professors, thereby providing an illuminating view of Rihannsu Fleet medical standards some 150 years ago.

One of the last entries in her diary prior to the Levaeri V Incident is a lengthy, minutely detailed description of the _Enterprise_ sickbay, including everything she was taught by its staff as well as everything she could observe about the facilities. There is almost no personal comment included. She was almost certainly “taking notes” for the kind of “unauthorized technology transfer” which was frequent, in various forms, between the Federation and the pre-Accession Rihannsu (the _Mantle_ incident, also involving the _Enterprise_ , being the most notorious example). Anything t’Hrienteh was able to glean from the _Enterprise_ , she would: out of patriotism, we gather, and also out of a genuine desire to heal.

Her physician’s soul resonated with the _Enterprise_ medical staff, to judge by the unstinting instruction she received as well as entries in personal logs of Leonard McCoy and Lt. Cmdr. Lia Burke. Even in later, more openly anti-Federation entries, t’Hrienteh writes of McCoy with a curious ambiguity. Shortly after _Bloodwing_ ’s dramatic extraction of McCoy from ch’Rihan, she summarizes the events briefly and adds “Typical of the man, to save his own life by talking. I remember Burke on the _Enterprise_ , describing the talking paradigm of healing they have; I never thought this was what she had in mind,” in a probable reference to Terran-based psychiatry. In the later stages of the Unsettlement, she describes treating injured crew members after the Battle of Artaleirh and writes with bitter envy of her memories of the spacious, well-appointed _Enterprise_ sickbay. “Now I know what it looks like when a chief surgeon is truly valued by his commander. Fortunate Mak’khoi, to be so treasured by not one Commander but two.”

Typical of this late period of the diaries, the prevailing mood on the surface of the entry is one of desperate resentment and bitterness toward Ael i-Mhiessan. As the above quotation suggests, however, it is hard not to infer that t’Hrienteh’s particular, eventual hatred for Ael derived its heat, at the root, from the other side of the Ruling Passion.  

\--H’daen tr’Fallair, Chair of Rihannsu Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, Sol-III

\--Marie-Laure Dumela, Fellow, Institute for Cross-Cultural Work in Translation, Olympiade, Sol-IV

 

From Dhaenn t’Hrienteh’s last log entry before the Levaeri Incident:

 _…Nniol tr’AAnikh is to return to_ Bloodwing _. His sister Ndaet serves on_ Javelin _, and who would ask him to risk firing on kin? “_ Eridet’ _,” he said to me, “the Commander asked me to choose, and I said to her ‘We were close.’ Why didn’t I say ‘We are close’? I live, Ndaet lives, I have not killed my sister!”_

_“You may say it another time, if you both survive,” I told him. “And if not, then you spoke no more than truth, a little early.” Others will lose family here for their beliefs; tr’AAnikh is not singled out for grief._

_Later, still on the_ Lloann’na _ship, the Commander sat with us—tr’Keirianh, t’Khnialmnae, myself—and told us of the Federation captain’s response to her news of tr’AAnikh. “Is it a matter of trust?” “I was angry,” she said. “Does he think no more than that of us—that any of us could turn traitor so easily? I told him yes, it was a matter of trust—Nniol trusts me enough to tell me that he does not know whether he can trust himself.”_

_I said nothing. Nniol the fortunate, the blessed—and not he alone. What grace, what luck, what incredible luxury they have, who can trust enough to say such a thing._

 

 

Part 2

 - _su_ : adjectival ending, cf. _rihanh_ (n.) “the declared” — >  _rihannsu_ (adj.) “declared,” _einef_ (n.) “emerald” (usually translated thus in Standard, actually a green stone geologically closer to malachite) —>  _einevsu_ (adj.) “green” etc. (See _einef_ for a discussion of the change in standard usage from the pre-Departure coinage _sevannsu_ to _einevsu_ for green, following the start of _einef_ mining on ch’Rihan.)

 

[now]

Private notes on the first Vulcan translation of _Between Empires_ , the autobiography of Suiren i-Steiv t’Rllaillieu, made during the translation process by T’Hurin, instructor in comparative linguistics, Vulcan Academy of Languages and Linguistics, mi’Yuanh, Vulcan

Note to self: Drive out habits formed during t’Llhweiir translation [ _Memoirs_ , Arrhae i-Khellian t’Llhweiir/Terise Haleakala-LoBrutto, bilingual text blending Federation Standard (Anglish recension) and Rihannsu]. T’Llhweiir writes with absolute honesty and straightforwardness, only clouding or omitting facts potentially endangering persons still alive at the time; she allows the language itself to form the shadow to her words, which her use of a blended text does with devastating effect. In contrast, Suiren i-Steiv presents a made self in her monolingual text, although not always for the purpose of casting herself in the best light; the relatively plain language she uses implies an untouched integrity which history suggests is far from the case. I must be aware of this throughout the translation.

Facts re cloaking device incident. Suiren’s prose drier than elsewhere, self-mocking in tone (?). Fascination (?) with Cmdr. Spock? with Vulcan culture? Self-awareness evident in text; at time? Subjunctive much in evidence; query use of future subj. in Vulcan inappropriate? Footnotes: a problem. Accurate/objective accounts of incident not easily obtained. Cmdr. Spock’s papers remain sealed. Ships’ logs (apply Starfleet / R. H. Command)? V. difficult to obtain permission for viewing, esp. significant incidents of this kind. Research descendants of _Enterprise_ / _Mantle_ personnel, inquire personal logs/communications? Venturing into field of biog. rather than translation.

From burning of House-name through return to R. Empire, Suiren’s personal pronoun changes from _sthe_ [standard first-person pronoun for an adult female] to _llau’jh_ (no Vulcan translation—“the woman,” “anonymous woman,” “nonexistent woman”?). How to express this concisely in Vulcan? Continue using _hu_ [Vulcan standard first-person pronoun]? Use _t’naen_ [Vulcan general noun for “woman”]? Perhaps neologize _hu’adhe_ [first-person pronoun with past-tense ending]?

Transcriptions of F. Standard words, names of students at 215 Station: confirm with Lee-Chatterji, Sevak.

Descriptions of Mrian ei-H tr’T. For Lelenthsu dialect, confirm with t’Haroun, tr’Lefvaer (?). (Cultural sensitivity?) No similarly significant differences in Vulcan dialects. Represent with a “Far North” accent (doubled dark vowels, _t_ as _th_ , _s_ as _sh_ )? Use Standard Vulcan with footnotes? Italicized speech to represent dialect? Also confirm that Suiren’s dialect transcriptions are accurate. (See also section VIII: time on Lelent during her daughter’s childhood, experience captaining short-range couriers with Lelenthsu crews.)

 

[then]

Of course she could not pass as one of them, and would not as a Vulcan. They found her almost as soon as she bought her ticket on the liner--the ship she had hoped would somehow bring her to where _he_ was, so that she might kill him, or he her. The ones who found her wore his uniform, but not his face. They would not kill her, and gave her no chance to give them no choice about it. When all the paperwork was said and done, they brought her to the Station, which was like her: it had a number but no name. They gave her a job, a room to live in, even pay, though not her freedom. They did not give her a new name. They did not recognize her as nameless.

But no one called her by a number. Neither her sixteen-character serial number, which they could not pronounce any more than what had been her name, nor the prisoner number she was assigned during the long due process. Some of them on the Station called her _teacher_ in her own language, or in one of theirs. Some of them took what they could of what had been her name and called her Su.

In her language, _su_ was not even a word—a grammatical particle, a single character. “Su” was an impossibility, a name with no meaning.

“I think it’s a nice name,” said one of her guard-students cheerfully, a short, round Terran woman who might have been in her fifties or her eighties. “I had an aunt called Sue. Well, Susanna, but Sue in the family.”

“An aunt,” the woman called Su repeated carefully, using the Anglish word—they were speaking Federation Standard. “Were you—close to her?”

Meg Castelli nodded. “She as good as raised me. My mother was in Starfleet—an engineer, a mechanic really, she used to say she was the one who had to get out and push when the engine broke down. So she wasn’t home a lot, and my aunt Sue brought me up. I was always thrilled when Mama was home, sure, but Sue saw me through the day-to-day.” Talkative Meg began on a story about her teenage years, and the woman called Su looked at her and through her and thought of the other short, strong woman who had stood up and spoken on her behalf until her voice rasped with it, who had turned away from the burning of her name… _Sister-daughter_ , said the voice in her head, and she shook it away before it could go on to try and name her.

To Mir, too, they gave a name that was no name. The woman called Su did not ask him what his name was, or if he still had one. He might, and she would have none to offer in return. “Mir!” said another guard-student, Nadya Orlandovna, who had almost—almost—as many names herself as a Rihanha would, who pronounced their language during classes with a guttural edge that made her sound like a ch’Havranha. “Mir means peace where I come from! Could there be a better name than that?”

Mir smiled at her and said nothing. Su did not know if he had always been a man of few words or if he became one as he became Mir, but he spoke little, even to her and the others. When he did speak, his accent nearly defeated her. She could hear the small pauses, the effort he made to choose verb forms and shape vowel sounds, and guessed that he came from a colony world far away from ch’Rihan, one of those worlds where Eisn was hardly more than a fairy tale, where the language of the Travellers had mutated in their mouths until it was barely Rihannsu at all, and the standard tongue of the Empire was a foreign language studied from textbooks in school, just as their guard-students did now…one of the worlds she had refused, choosing instead to enter the Federation and hope for death at _his_ hands.

 

By what decisions she did not know, the news of the battles in Rihannsu space and the accession of the Empress did not reach them until after the fact. Her fellow teacher-prisoners reacted each in their own way, some with unfeigned jubilation (shared with nearly all their students, most ecstatic over the potential opportunities for research), some with distress and anger, some reserving judgment until the day, not so long after, when they were told they might return home.

The details of the granting of permission for their return were never made clear to her either; an amnesty of some nature, or a quiet change of status on a few sheets of paperwork. Perhaps not all of them needed that permission at all; once again she did not ask.

Mir, typically, did not say anything to her in person: she found the paper on her desk that evening after her classes were over, plain elegant Rihannsu script and old-fashioned phrasing, a single line from a poet called tr’Laheiin of whom she had not heard: _sahrain’se t’haanui t’edere hrrau yhmie aueth’adanh nne_. She puzzled over it for a little while, until understanding that _t’edere_ was _t’ethurr_ and _nne_ was _nnuen_. “I hesitate at the gate of my home for the touch of your hand”—perhaps.

She went to his room, something they had not been allowed before; tonight no one stopped her. “Yes,” she said when he answered the door, because of the light that had been in his eyes all day, and because she could not see any other path.

A group of them was conveyed to the Neutral Zone and there transferred to a small and shabby Rihannsu ship, crewed by out-planeters whose speech she barely understood. The commander, a woman about her own age with tired eyes and a burn scar sprawling along her jawline from left ear to chin, assigned her to a cabin with four others, and added over her shoulder that there was a message for her in the com system.

How could they stand living in this cramped space, she thought, reminding herself that in her own antecenturion days she would have taken it for granted. The cabin had no viewscreen of its own: she waited until ship’s night, when the passengers were sleeping and the crew asleep or on duty, and found the screen tucked into a corner of the inadequate space that was the ship’s leisure room.

The message was sealed. She sat still in front of the familiar/unfamiliar Rihannsu interface and watched the square charactry on the screen, asking her for her serial number and her mother’s three names. Things she would not forget, no matter where she had been.

Eventually she gave in and entered the sixteen-character string and the words: _LLaes i-Mhiessan t’Rllaillieu._

The message began _Sister-daughter_. She had known that it would, but even so she stopped breathing until she had read the entire, sparse text: just four lines, formal and laconic, giving her back her name. The signature read _Llhei’hmnë t’Rihannsu yh’t’Havrannsu yh’t’Nvaihllar Bereinnsu Ael i-Mhiessan t’Rllaillieu_.

Suiren i-Steiv t’Rllaillieu looked from the screen to her shaking hands and whispered her mother-sister’s new name, and then her own.

 

With her own name in her mouth, though as yet unspoken, she found it impossible to think of him as “Mir” any longer; he was a nameless space in her head, until the day they arrived on Lelent. The primitive little shuttleport was crowded with people leaving and returning, still recovering from the Unsettlement, and someone—a big copper-haired man in what looked like a much-abused Fleet uniform tunic, worn open, with a child clinging to his shoulders—caught Mir’s eye, looked twice, and called out in a voice that rang through the whole room, “ _Mrian!_ By my Element, it’s Mrian ei-Haneh! He’s back!”

Everyone there seemed to converge on them at once, all talking at once in the slurred, clipped-ending Lelenthsu dialect. Mir…no, Mrian…talked back, more words in those few minutes than she had heard him speak in all the time at the Station, his face shining. Mrian, they called him, as if they knew him well, and M’haneh, and tr’Tanaen—and so now she knew his House name as well.

The light voice speaking with—yes, with authority, with controlled excitement, with certainty—was like nothing she had heard from him before. If it meant hearing him speak to her in that voice, she might be able to stay here long enough to tell him her name.

 

The Empress came the summer after. Conveyed by the Ship Clan _Tyrava_ , she visited Lelent as part of a kind of Grand Progress around the colony worlds. “Asking to be assassinated,” said Mrian’s cousin Sevh, in the middle of one of the big House dinners where everyone talked over one another (Suiren could mostly follow the dialect by now), but Tallain-from-over-the-river said “She wants to know us, who are we to pass up the chance?”

Suiren half expected the summons, and was not surprised when it came. She walked through _Tyrava_  in a dream, and found her mother-sister in a small, comfortable, well-appointed room all in black and gold.

What seemed strangest, at first, was that she was not wearing Fleet uniform, but only a plain black tunic and half-cloak, her hair still in that one heavy braid. It was almost a third silver now, but otherwise she looked not so much older than she had in Suiren’s childhood. A tall blonde woman with a broad open face stood at her right shoulder, a little dark snub-nosed one at her left.

“Suiren,” Ael said to her, and she guessed that it was deliberate, the use of her name. Once she had been always _sister-daughter_ , or later, teasingly, _khre’Riov_. “Be welcome. Sit. Aidoann, N’alae, I thank you; we will do well enough alone for the moment.” (“Madam,” said the two younger women together, leaving by a door that was not the one she had come in by, both with sharp eyes on her until the last moment.) “Wine?”

“Perhaps not,” she said, taking the seat across from Ael. “I was a long time where Rihannsu liquor is not to be found, and lost my taste for it somewhat.” That would do as an excuse, with more than a grain of uncomfortable truth as well.

“Plain draft, then,” Ael said, pouring for them both.

“It is a great honor,” Suiren observed rather bleakly, “to be waited on by the Empress.”

“You have, once upon a time, had the greater honor of having your swaddling clothes changed by the same hands,” Ael retorted. “Although you did not seem to think it much of one then. I remember well how you screamed.”

Perhaps she had meant only to lighten the air, but now they were both remembering the last day when Suiren stood on ch’Rihan and kept iron silence before the Council as they took her name. It was Ael who had spoken then, for all the good it did either of them.

They sipped herbdraft together, and began the innocuous conversation of two people who have not met in too long. Suiren described life on Lelent simply enough, gentle Mrian and his cascade of cousins who all seemed to look to him for direction, the courier runs, the accent. Ael spoke of politics, a little, and explained that the two women attending on her were both old crewmates from _Bloodwing._

“They chose to leave the Fleet?” Suiren asked.

She got a sharp, questioning look. “They have not resigned their commissions. Aidoann and the others—have each their own ways of loyalty.”

“So do we all,” Suiren said deliberately, and waited. Her mother-sister watched her without speaking, and she was moved to go on. “I had a ship, once. One day I would have one again.”

It was a challenge more than a request, even a test; there would have been less blatant ways to proceed.

“You lost a ship, once,” Ael said calmly, and neither of them flinched. “How should I know that you will not lose one again? I do not have so many ships that I can afford to throw them away like _hlai_ scales.”

“I was betrayed.” Suiren kept her head up. “Has he…have they…not told you as much?”

Ael watched her for a long moment then, her eyes curiously unfocused—as if someone else was looking out through them, Suiren thought suddenly, and felt a sickening twinge of vertigo, for an instant back in her cabin on _Mantle_ , with—But _he_ could not be looking at her through her mother-sister’s eyes. Or could he?

Ael said at last, very slowly, “There are always reasons for betrayal.”

“For you that is easy to say,” with more bitterness than she had heard in her own voice since coming to Lelent.

“Is it?” Now the eyes on hers were the Empress’. “Let me tell you, sister-daughter, how your cousin died.” And she did.

“ _Tafv did what?!”_ an unknowing echo. Suiren listened to her own voice still ringing in the silent room, and in spite of herself, looking for him, devoured her mother-sister’s face with her gaze. The clean short line of the nose was his, and the dark eyes, deeper set in the older woman but with the same almond shape and faint twist outward of the dark eyebrows. Not the jawline, though; it was the father he had never seen who had given Tafv his neat square jaw.

She had known he was dead, grieved for his loss. But this…

“How could he be so _stupid_?” she managed at last, and heard her voice crack childishly on the last, childish word. “Even if it were right…even if _mnhei’sahe_ …oh Elements, when we were _children_ he could never get anything past you, we would play tricks on you and my mother, do you remember the…oh, what does it matter now. You always _knew_ , sometimes you let yourself be fooled but you were always ahead of him…” She choked on tears, swallowed painfully. “How could he throw himself away like that? What a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do! I’ll never see him again, I miss him, how could he do that to us?”

Ael sat silent, listening, her eyes dry, her hands still in her lap, a statue of loss.

“Did he say it was all for me? Truly? I wonder if he believed it himself…what _waste_ , throwing good honor after bad…”

Her mother-sister let her cry herself out. _My Element is water_ , Suiren thought, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. _I thought I had learned not to drown_.

“ _Khnai’ra rhissiuy_ ,” was what Ael said when Suiren had quieted at last:  _thank you_ , or _thank you for giving more than was asked_. “I am trying no longer to keep score. Whose betrayal was greatest, whose trust weighed heavier…But it helped me to hear you say it.” She sighed, deeply, and sat back a little in her chair. “And I had forgotten…I had tried to forget…let us remember him together, another time, sister-daughter. Let me ask that favor of you.”

Suiren cleared her throat. “ _Mnhei’sahe_...his memory...would ask of me no less.”

A moment of silent stillness.

Ael took a long deliberate drink of herbdraft, and freshened their cups. “I have another duty to request of you, for the moment. Do you know how many Rihannsu have real experience of teaching our language to aliens?”

Suiren raised her head, shaken back into the more recent memories of the Station.

“Neither do I. I have not counted. They are few, though, and most are dead—or would soon become so if approached openly.” Memories Suiren could not read changed the set of her mouth for a moment. “Next summer,” she went on, “there will be five aliens coming here, to ch’Rihan—and ch’Havran, I insisted on that as well. Perhaps not the east continent, not yet, but Farmer Gurri will find them safe havens for a week or so. Children, perhaps the age—in their years—that we are when we begin Fleet training. They will need to study. Will you serve as one of their teachers?”

Suiren blinked, in honest surprise. “ _Rrh-thanai_?”

“Something of the sort. Our talks with the Federation have progressed this far. They are a curious people, their young ones no less…What do you say? Will you think on it?”

“Teaching _Lloan’na_ children…” Suiren sat straighter, let her hand move to her waist. “Next summer, madam, I will have a child of my own to think about. If all goes well.”

For the first time in the fraught interview, Ael’s composure was visibly shaken. “When?”

“This winter, by the Lelenthsu seasons. Next summer—your summer—I will still have a babe at the breast.” _If I do not miscarry, even now. If the child is born whole and healthy, and remains so. Childbirth should not be more frightening than commanding a starship._ “ _Mhae-deje_ ”—mother-sister—“will you help me?” spoken before the thought was even consciously formed.

Ael’s face convulsed for a moment, her eyes momentarily bright with the tears she had not shed before. “I will,” she said. “And I will still ask you to do the job, suckling or no—bring the babe to ch’Rihan, keep her with you as you teach. Later I will foster the child when she is old enough, if you will send her, Lelenthsu accent and all. And then I will ask you again if you want a ship.”

 

 

Part 3

 _aidoann, -nta_ (n.) moon. Originally developed for use as a strictly scientific term for “smaller satellite bound in orbit around a planet,” since both Vulcan and ch’Rihan have sister planets rather than moons per se, and are thus lacking in the poetic and symbolic references to the moon found in literatures of Earth, Andor, and numerous other planets with one or more lunar satellites. Neither Charis (T’Khut) nor ch’Havran is referred to as _aidoann_. In common use (outside theoretical astronomy) only on colony planets with moons, such as Lelent, Masariv, or Theilenn (the latter distinguished by no fewer than six). Used occasionally as a proper name for both women and men, most often on colony planets such as the above cited; considered somewhat quaint on the Two Worlds proper. Cultural references also include _nva’idoann_ “moonstone,” a white or pale yellow marblelike stone native to Marheih and used extensively in, and synonymously with, its famous tradition of sculpture, and Eveh tr’Laheiin’s _Rahaet_ _ch’Aidoann_ or _Moon Lyrics_ , the first collection of poetry and essays published by a colonial net.

 

[now]

Excerpt from "Unsettlement and Rebuilding: The Modern Romulan Star Empire," by Gemar hr'Tanesh (Cmdr. Ret., Starfleet) and Kim Min Shil (Assoc. Prof., Ritsumeikan University) in _Planetary_ _Regime Change in the Postwarp Era_  (McCandry, T'Vren, UUriul), a supplementary text for the Starfleet Academy introductory modern interstellar history course: _  
_

The Bloodwing Council was originally formed during the Unsettlement period between the Levaeri V Incident and the Accession of Ael i-Mhiessan. At that time the Council had no name, indeed no legal existence; its members were forced to operate under strenuous restrictions of secrecy, or risk their lives and their names. At some point during this period they began jokingly to refer to themselves as the “Blood of Traitors’ League,” and—as has often happened throughout Rihannsu history—the joke caught on. They were then very few in number, and mostly very young: some of the family and, in a few cases, friends of the exiled crew of ChR _Bloodwing_. A handful, like Llhran tr'Khnialmnae and Eilahh t'Viaen, operated with the tacit support of their Houses; others, such as Nveid tr’AAnikh (now better known as the first Rihannsu composer to experiment with Federation musical forms and instruments, and one of the greatest to do so) and Leilidh t’Saae (who died on ch’Havran during the last days of the Unsettlement), faced disownment or worse if their actions were known to their family. 

After the Accession, the League became a publically acknowledged organization, reinventing themselves—this time with the membership of some of the crew of _Bloodwing_ themselves—as the Bloodwing Council, a group of mostly but not entirely young and progressive Rihannsu with a strong interest in supporting the Empress and the future of the Empire. Arrhae t'Llhweiir's _Memoirs_ style it "as close to a political party as you could get on a world with no tradition of any such."

It was the Bloodwing Council (led on this issue by Melefv t'Egerien, a sometime lover of Giellun tr'Keirianh and a teacher by profession) which first formally proposed the idea of _rrh-thanai_ with the Federation, and hung on through the predictable tide of opposition, on all grounds from the purely jingoistic to the practical. A word from the Empress would have decided the matter, but matters might not have worked out so happily thereafter, and Ael i-Mhiessan had more than enough political intelligence, in all senses, to have the issue worked out in public first.

They succeeded in the end, buoyed by the strength of a tradition older than the past regime, and—a larger victory, as the Empress' castellan Ffairl tr’Aleijha wrote caustically after the fact—gained the Federation’s consent as well. Tr'Aleijha and t'Llhweiir were tasked by the Empress to carry out the program, and a Federation envoy—Starfleet chose Leonard McCoy—was summoned to confer with them. (T'Llhweiir records the Empress' virulent annoyance (in private) at her failure to gain consent for non-hominid participants in the first "class" (in the event three Terrans, a Tellarite boy, and a girl from Vulcan). An innovative approach to the issue came from N'alae t'Serian, an Imperial Security officer late of  _Bloodwing_ , who—with Ael i-Mhiessan's blessing—joined forces with Senator Eviess t'Tei to sponsor the first Interstellar Tournament of  _Llaekh'aerl_ , the Rihannsu martial art uniquely suited to the talents of non-hominids such as Sulamids.) Fragile as it was, the  _Hlalhif Khmaer_  era had begun.

 

[then] 

There was an evening, just as spring was turning to summer, when the Empress made an official appearance at a concert sponsored by the Bloodwing Council. It was held outdoors in ra’Lianedh Square, some distance from the palace, and Ael reluctantly agreed to ride there in a flitter rather than making the walk. For speed, for security. _The Empress is the people’s servant, and also their prisoner._

Ra’Lianedh Square was an older neighborhood of Ra’tleihfi, a small park with a school on one side and Houses on the other three, mostly small plasbrick constructions with the typical stubby elegance of the Tir’verun period. The performers sat at one end, and the audience spread itself comfortably around the rest of the park as they would. Most of the House windows were open, listeners ready. Special seats had been prepared for Ael and her entourage (Aidoann, mostly, and a small invisible detachment of security), and she made herself comfortable and dealt, supported by Aidoann’s newly expert diplomacy, with the small stream of local residents who wanted to thank her or complain about something or ask for help or just say hello and introduce their children. The air was soft on her cheeks, a breeze bringing the faint scent of the  _sahnna_  flowers.

The concert was a mixed bag, some traditional songs (mostly new to Aidoann, apparently, although Ael could have hummed along with nearly all of them), tr’Dehherin’s classic _Spring Symphony_ , and then—the main reason they had come—a new work.

Nveid tr’AAnikh did look like his brother, Ael thought, wishing Nniol could have come down from _Bloodwing_ for the occasion. Standing in front of the musicians, no longer in Fleet uniform but in formal civilian clothes, Nveid was still a distinctly unprepossessing figure. He took the little microphone from the conductor, cleared his throat, and spoke to the audience. “Thank you very much for joining us tonight. My name is tr’AAnikh, and next I will have the honor of having a new work of mine performed. You will notice some differences in the orchestration,” with a gesture toward the musicians. Several of the wind players were holding instruments unfamiliar to Ael; she was not musical enough to know what they represented, but there was a disturbed murmur from the audience. Aidoann drew breath sharply, bent her head to Ael’s ear to whisper “Federation _Terran_ instruments…”

“Some of the harmonies may be new to you as well,” Nveid went on loudly. “Please understand, this is a musical choice I have made, I would not do such a thing for the sake of politics—music is too important for that. I hope you will listen to it in the same spirit.” He waited, and the audience quieted a little. “The piece is very short; don’t be afraid. It is called _Voices_. It is for my family.”

Ael and Aidoann breathed in together. House s’AAnikh was fragmented: Nveid could no longer go home, his parents still grieving for Ndaet who had died on _Javelin_. His brother Nniol had all too good reasons for not returning planetside. Nveid’s choice of dedication was as inflammatory as his orchestration, even if few there knew it.

But the music was lovely, gentle, the flowing woodwind voices an invocation to—to peace? comfort? reconciliation? Well, Ael reasoned to herself, half-watching as Aidoann wiped her eyes covertly, if it could be put into words it would not need to be in music.

They came home, to what Ael refused to call the palace, late, and heard loud voices carrying down the hall from beyond Ael’s own rooms. Aidoann tensed and smiled almost in the same moment. “Arrhae and Ffairl,” she said. “I wonder what the argument is about.”

“Shall we go and eavesdrop?”

They gathered that Arrhae and Ffairl had been listening to the broadcast of the concert in the park. “It’s too early,” Arrhae was insisting, the slight born-slave accent coming out stronger, “it’s too soon to be pushing the Federation so hard. It’s not what’s needed now.”

“Then what are we putting so much work into the _rrh-thanai_ program for? If not to bring the Federation—“

“That’s not what I _mean_! That’s a chance for them to learn more of us, and us of them, it’s an exchange, it’s needed, I’m not arguing about _that_. But for a Rihannsu to bring Federation, Terran culture into a Rihannsu space—when we’re still trying to figure out who we are now—“

“You think we’re so fragile we can’t stand up against a bit of Terran harmony in a piece of Rihannsu music?”

“Any culture is fragile,” Arrhae said seriously, suddenly quiet, “when it cannot trust itself enough. Things are changing so much here, so fast—we need to understand who we are first, _be_ who we are first, and then think about what we want to take in from others.”

Ael and Aidoann, listening fascinated from the corridor, heard Ffairl sigh. “Understanding who we are might take lifetimes.”

Arrhae’s voice in reply was surprised. “Of course. Always. But we have to begin.”

“We have begun,” he said, quieter, and Ael and Aidoann caught each other’s eyes and moved softly away.

 

“You know, _llhei,_ ” Aidoann said, once they had gone into the Empress’ suite (with its faint spicy scent of the Vulcan-inspired ointment Ael used each night) and begun to prepare for their respective beds, “I was very…very surprised, when I found out what…who Arrhae was.”

Ael snorted. “And well you might be. Who would have thought that our most fervent patriot had been born a _lloann’na_ …?” Deliberately she used the slangy, mildly derogatory “Fed,” and the corners of Aidoann’s mouth turned up briefly.

“That too, certainly. But I had not expected that a _hru’hfe_ , a servant…no, that is backwards. And wrong, though what I was taught… I would have thought that they were taught as I was, that a highly ranked Federation officer would never willingly serve her enemies—as housekeeper, even once as slave!—under any circumstances.” Aidoann tugged unconsciously on the end of her braid, the old gesture of uncertainty.

Ael began to unpin her own braid, pausing to admire the pins, starship-metal inset with small fire-opals. A ridiculous luxury, but one that had been a gift from Courhig tr’Mahan “in honor of the doings at Artaleirh,” something to treasure for both the raging gleam of the gems and the dull strong metal—“Tell me, small one, would you do it? If I had asked it of you, to serve ch’Rihan in such a way—as the servant of her enemies?”

“Have I ever refused anything you have asked of me, _llhei_?” Aidoann came to stand behind her, taking over the job of unpinning Ael’s hair. “I would do it—I would try to do it. I do not say I _could_ do it. You know I am no good at…what do I call it? It is not lying, what Arrhae did for so long. Pretending—hiding the self—becoming a _different_ self—“

“Yes, for you _mnhei’sahe_ is the self untouched and unveiled, is it not.” Ael cupped a palm to receive the remainder of the hairpins. “Will you comb it out for me? Thank you…”

She felt the momentary slight absence of warmth as Aidoann moved away to fetch the comb.

“ _Khre’Ri_ — _Llhei’hmnë—_ Ael.”

Usually the long-running joke of Aidoann’s struggles with her name made Ael smile; for some reason, this time there was a note in the younger woman’s voice that permitted no levity. “Yes,” she said simply, and waited.

“How is it that you trust me? _Do_ you trust me?”

Ael blinked. “As much as I trust anyone,” she said, and then shook her head, disturbing the movement of the comb through her hair. “I am sorry…No. No, cousin, I do trust you, in all the meaning of the word. You of all people. Did you doubt it?”

“It’s not you I doubt, _llhei_ —Ael. But—even for me, it was so hard to learn that one _cannot_ trust, that the people most trusted, unquestioningly, can be the ones who betray you—And you were so much closer than I.” She did not say the names, or need to. “Of all I learned on _Bloodwing_ , that was the hardest lesson. I do not know how you can—how you still—“

Ael reached back into her own hair to take Aidoann’s hands, one still holding the comb, drawing the younger woman close against her back. “You are wrong, small one. That is not the hardest lesson. One harder comes after it, and it is learning that some trusts are not betrayed.”

They stood together for a few moments, listening to the echo of the words; then there was a soft clatter as the comb fell to the floor. She felt Aidoann’s hands tighten on hers. “…Ael?”

“What is it?” knowing the answer.

Aidoann hesitated palpably, then released her hands, coming around her so that they could see one another. “I do not know how to say it…but…I don’t want to wait any longer for you to speak. I…May I stay with you? Tonight.”

Ael stood there in silence, literally wordless for a moment, struggling to come up with a distillation of all she felt in a way she could express. “No,” she said only, finally, and saw Aidoann’s face close down.

“I am sorry. If you do not want it, I will not speak of it again. I did not mean to—“ all suddenly in a more formal mode than Aidoann had used since her antecenturion days.

“Did I say I did not want it—did not want you?” It seemed immeasurably important to make this understood, if she could only say it all without giving away the tearing pain of it. “Aidoann, I have been your commander since we knew each other. And now I am the Empress, and you serve me with unwavering loyalty. I could order you to—serve me in that way, and you could not say no to me if you wanted to. How can I ask you into my bed, knowing that?”

“But you also know that I do not want to say no.” Aidoann’s eyes had come alive again, her head up as if she were on the _Bloodwing_ bridge during an engagement. In spite of herself, Ael felt the same rising spirits. “Madam—“ the term deliberately chosen this time, almost a tease—“ do you think I have not thought about this? Allow me to point something out to you. Do our laws and traditions demand that an Empress be celibate?”

“Well—no—“

“Then no matter whom you share yourself with, it will be someone who serves you, as all subjects of the Empire do by definition. Unless you propose to seduce the President of the Federation—?”

Ael choked, and for a moment the tension broke and they both giggled like junior officers. “That is not the mode of interstellar diplomacy I would prefer,” she said, assuming a grave tone with effort.

“Then—if you choose to be with anyone at all—let it be someone who _has_ been under your command, who knew you when your highest title was _khre’Riov_ , who has seen you wounded and hungover and tossed across the room by N’alae and laughing to tears over a card game and—“ Aidoann swallowed, caught her breath. “ _Khre’Riov_ , I have loved you since I first knew you. If you will not have me, there will still be no one else I love, not in the same way. I have never expected that you should love me in the same way—but if you would have me—“

“Aidoann,” Ael said, only that, and realized how the name felt in her mouth. In public she would address the younger woman by her military rank, and in private she had long been in the habit of _cousin_ or _small one_ …what had she been keeping from herself?

Somehow they had taken one another’s hands again; Ael was not sure who had reached out first. “ _If_ I would have you…the question is whether you would trust me so far.”

“You have just told me of the hardest lesson of trust. Are you going to deprive me of the chance to learn it?”

“I would not deprive you of…anything I could give you,” Ael said, in no more than a whisper. She was almost painfully aware of Aidoann’s hands in hers, the warm square palms (and the raised scar on the left one from the time the bridge viewscreen blew up), a moist hint of sweat, the long fingers interlacing with her own. “But…I do not know if I can give you all I want you to have.”

“I will take the risk,” Aidoann said, and drew her close.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for giving me the chance to write in this world. I have a feeling I haven’t managed to follow your wonderful prompt very closely, and I apologize; I hope there’s something here for you to enjoy.  
> The line “There are always reasons for betrayals” comes from William E. Coles Jr.’s _Compass in the Blood_. Ael and Aidoann’s conversation about trust was very much inspired by a similar exchange in Peter Dickinson’s _Shadow of a Hero_.


End file.
